


Ice, Snow, and the Rest

by Nautilusopus



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Aeris Gast Soldier First Class, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, put a shirt on sephiroth, who do you think you're impressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-08 21:56:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12262845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nautilusopus/pseuds/Nautilusopus
Summary: Two First Class Soldiers sneak off to learn more about their heritage. Neither of them has permission to be there. (Part of belderiver's Aeris in Soldier AU)





	Ice, Snow, and the Rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [belderiver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/belderiver/gifts).



> Birthday present for belderiver, who is one of the only reasons anything else I've written so far is remotely coherent. Happy birthday, Bel! 
> 
> This was written for an AU where Aeris never left Shinra and wound up in Soldier. It was really fucking good so I just threw this on the pile in the hopes that one day it'll be written in full. (I may go back one day and expand this into an actual thing maybe.)

Grey and white -- that was all she could see for miles. Everything was covered in a layer of ice, anything alive and growing having long since withered away. The wind snatched at her hair, her face stinging as it was buffeted by snow. The cold air drank in every sound around her, leaving everything, even the roar of the helicopter behind her, strangely muted. 

As the engine powered down, she was able to make out a crunching noise behind her. She didn't turn around, still staring inquisitively down the lip of the crater. The Turk she'd coerced into taking them out here was still with the helicopter. Strictly speaking, this wasn't quite an officially sanctioned trip, but none of the lower ranks had wanted to say no to a First Class Soldier, let alone Aeris Gast.

The footsteps stopped a foot or two to her right. "Someone will have noticed we've left by now," came Sephiroth's voice from behind her. An absolute madman -- who went around shirtless this far up north? Her coat was barely doing anything for her as it was. 

"If you were worried about being written up, you wouldn't have come," she pointed out. "You volunteered for this."

"It was relevant to my interests," he said simply. "And more to the point, if you were worried about me following you, I doubt you would have allowed me to come."

"I thought I might get lost," said Aeris. Which wasn't true at all -- she didn't get lost. She did, however, get bored. "Come on. The snow's gonna pick back up any minute now."

She'd been planning this trip for a while now. Most other places she visited on her own time were easy enough to get to by her own means, but this far out of the way had required an airlift. The dreams had been the same for some time -- always white and grey, and always burning with green. It had taken her longer than she'd like to admit to recognise what that meant. 

"You're certain it's here?" said Sephiroth after another moment of trudging through the snow in silence. 

"Somewhere around here, anyway. I'll be able to listen better when we start getting close."

"And you got all this from your dream?"

"Sort of. It's hard to listen in Midgar. That's another reason coming out here will be good, won't it?" The ground seemed to just stop some distance ahead. She squinted through the snow blurring her vision -- they were approaching a cliff, it seemed. A big one. "Can't you hear a bit better already?"

Sephiroth mulled this over, approaching the lip of the crevasse and staring into it pensively. "...I wouldn't know. There will be a general feeling of something or other every now and then. Once, I heard a voice. I don't believe I understood what it was telling me."

"We'll consider this a learning experience, then." Aeris kicked a rock off the edge of the cliff. She didn't hear it hit the bottom. 

She began to listen, then. Even away from Midgar, the Planet was a cacophony of a billion lives and memories, but they were muted now, as though the snow had buried those noises as well. _Here,_ it told her, and _home,_ and _unclean. Unclean. Unclean._

"Stay here," she said, and began to carefully lower herself over the edge.

Sephiroth stared steadily at her. "Excuse me?"

"This is the spot. I'll probably be a while."

"I have as much right to be here," he said, and simply hopped off the edge. She heard him impact with something that wasn't the bottom and rolled her eyes, then followed him down.

 _I don't think the Planet wants you here,_ she thought about saying on the way down. She wasn't sure why. It had certainly led _her_ here, through months and months of wheedling about her head.

Instead she said, "It's kinda funny, don't you think?"

Sephiroth paused mid-step on his way down the last stretch of the cliff wall. "What is?"

"I look like my mother, right?" Aeris hopped off and landed unsteadily on the ice below. It was strangely smooth. She'd expected craggy rocks. "I'm guessing you probably look like yours, too. I guess you've got the professor's nose, but..."

Sephiroth landed behind her, digging his boots into the ice to keep himself upright. "But what?" Something flashed across his face for a moment, too quick for Aeris to interpret it.

"I guess I was hoping there would be pictures. Maybe a mural. You have to be curious too, right?" she asked. She continued looking around -- the road of ice they were standing on seemed completely straight.

"Matters pertaining to my mother specifically or any personal attachment she may or may not have held for me aren't my concern at the moment," he said shortly. "I consider this a cultural exchange. As I'm sure you do as well, albeit on a more personal level."

"Maybe," said Aeris. "I don't think my mother's gonna be holed up in the ice anywhere, but it would be nice to learn all this and think, 'This is what she would have been like'."

The ground seemed to buzz beneath her feet, up into her ears. There were tracks here -- not any visible ones. Ones that had faded a thousand years ago, worn by the memories of living things that had crept along this road and lived and fought and feasted and died on either end of it, that had listened just as she was listening. She began to retrace their steps. The noise got louder.

"It's not like you have to file a field report on this either," she added. "No reason to stay impartial."

"If my company isn't appreciated..."

"I thought I'd drag you out here for your people skills. I don't know what I was thinking either."

"I'll be sure to ask you when I'm filing my report."

She was only half listening now. The Planet was as loud as she'd ever heard it. It was no longer pulling her forwards. It made a noise, the same noise she heard it making in the reactors, but immeasurably deafening. It was angry.

In the distance, the walls on either side of the crevasse burst into a shower of stone, and the entire thing began to crumble in on itself from the far end of the crack inwards. They both began to backpedal rapidly, but they needn't have bothered; it stopped long before it came within a hundred metres of them.

Whatever was on the end of that crevasse was buried in stone. The Planet was no longer pulling her anywhere. The noise made it difficult to think.

Sephiroth was saying something to her. Go. Something about leaving. She blinked to clear her head.

"...place could come down on us at any minute. We'll have to try again some other time," he said. Aeris nodded wordlessly.

She took another look back at the newly-created mountain of rock and ice, and as much as she scolded herself for it, she couldn't help but think she should have come here alone. 

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't figure out how to hyperlink this thing but: 
> 
> https://fury-brand.tumblr.com/post/150232706852/aeris-gast-1st-class-special-forces-perhaps


End file.
